Bibliographic details of the publications referred to by author in this specification are collected at the end of the description.
Reference to any prior art in this specification is not, and should not be taken as, an acknowledgment or any form of suggestion that this prior art forms part of the common general knowledge in Australia or any other country.
Recombinant DNA technology is now an integral part of strategies to generate genetically modified eukaryotic cells. The past decade of plant molecular biology has seen the identification and cloning of thousands of genetic sequences, of both genomic and cDNA origin, from hundreds of plant species. With the recent development of advanced rapid techniques for cloning and sequencing and the completion or near-completion of the sequencing of entire genomes, such as for example for Arabidopsis and rice, attention has been re-focused on to the characterization of isolated sequences and the elucidation of their in vivo function.
One approach for carrying out these studies involves the production of a range of mutant plant lines exhibiting loss-of-function or gain-of-function phenotypes, and the subsequent selection and characterization of the mutant phenotypes produced. Techniques are available for the genetic transformation of a number of plant species and for the modulation of expression of genetic sequences, such as by the introduction of sense and/or antisense copies of particular genetic sequences.
In recent work leading up to the present invention, the inventors sought to identify modified phenotypes having potential commercial interest. In accordance with the present invention, the inventors have now identified a genetic sequence capable of modification of a plant's tissue architecture. The plants so generated exhibit commercially useful traits.